I was standing outside the supermarket yesterday
when I saw a policeman coming across the car park. He was walking in a
purposeful manner and talking into the mic clipped to his jacket.
‘Oh dear,’ I thought, ‘some poor shoplifter is
about to have the full weight of the system land on their heads.’
Five minutes later he came back out – carrying a
bag of shopping. And he was still talking into his mic.
Just goes to show you shouldn’t make assumptions,
I suppose.
* * *
I find British policeman disturbing these days. Whatever
happened to the good old British bobby who said "evenin’ all" in a friendly,
reassuring manner? The uniformed guys all look like thugs in starched shirts
now, and even the detectives look like well-heeled gangsters in smart suits. Some
of them even talk like it.
Talking isn’t what policemen do best. They tend to
fall back on clichés and platitudes too much. If they’re talking about
something in which a death is involved, they always finish with ‘Our thoughts
are with the victim’s family at this difficult time.’ Well, maybe they are, but
wouldn’t you think they’d find different ways of saying it? Reading the
standard form of words off a script makes it sound like they’re just saying it
for the sake of saying it.
2 comments:
We had a local bobby PC Sharp, a friend an I accidentally picked his house for our mischief night shenanigans. He wasn't very "evenin' all" when he caught us ;)
Maybe your chap in the supermarket was being directed for his shopping, "strawberry jam, third aisle."
We had one, too. Bobby Burt. All my childhood I thought his name was Albert. I think I was in my teens before somebody told me that Burt was a surname. And we all knew where he lived.
Never occurred to me that the rozzer on the radio was using it as a satnav.
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